Our Responsorial Psalm for July 4, 2021 was Psalm 123:
A Song of Ascents.
To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
till he has mercy upon us.
Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than enough
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud (ESV).
This is a Song of Ascents, one of fifteen pilgrim psalms for the faithful as they make their way up to Jerusalem. If these songs progress chronologically, the pilgrims have already made their way into the Temple, for Psalm 122 begins, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD.’ Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!” Yet, there is a great sense of longing for mercy in Psalm 123. The reason is expressed in its last four lines. “. . . for we have had more than enough of contempt. / Our soul has had more than enough / of scorn of those who are at ease / of the contempt of the proud.” As one commentator has expressed, “The pilgrims have returned from Babylon to a ruined city and a neglected land. Hostile colonists mocked their efforts to rebuild (Neh. 2:19).”
It is natural to focus on the image of the servant and the maidservant, and in particular how their eyes are cast upon the hands of their master and mistress pleading for mercy. “So our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us.” But on July 4, I was drawn to the word mercy. That’s because the congregational response, “Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy,” reminded me of a passage in chapter 59 of Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby. Ralph Nickleby, Nicholas Nickleby’s uncle and his primary antagonist, is visited by Charles Cheeryble on an errand of mercy.
By this time, the Cheeryble brothers and others have enough information about Ralph and his crimes to ruin him. Instead of throwing the book at him, Charles Cheeryble comes to Ralph to offer mercy.
Yet, Ralph preempts Charles’ message: “Not a word. I tell you, sir, not a word. Virtuous as you are, you are not an angel yet, to appear in men’s houses whether they will or not, and pour your speech into unwilling ears. Preach to the walls, I tell you; not to me!”
Charles responds, “I am no angel, Heaven knows . . . but an erring and imperfect man; nevertheless, there is one quality which all men have, in common with the angels, blessed opportunities of exercising, if they will; mercy. It is an errand of mercy that brings me here. Pray let me discharge it.”
Ralph’s response is truly sobering. “‘I show no mercy . . . and I ask none. Seek no mercy from me, sir, in behalf of the fellow [Nicholas] who has imposed upon your childish credulity, but let him expect the worst that I can do.’”
To extend mercy to our neighbors and to receive mercy from the Lord God and from our neighbors is indispensable for an emotionally and spiritually healthy life. One of the values of reading Nicholas Nickleby is seeing how Ralph Nickleby’s rejection of mercy plays out for him in contrast with how mercy extended to and accepted by Nicholas affects his life.
Indeed, it prompts us to consider times when we have received mercy from the Lord and from others, and to ponder times when we have extended mercy to others, even to our enemies. We might also take note of how those experiences have shaped our lives.
© Stan Bohall
August 9, 2021
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